Shifting the Darkness
by Mimiko-Dono
Summary: Even devils can lose their original form, but that's not as fatal as suffering from a broken heart. Oneshot.


_Disclaimer: Maleficent belongs to Disney, so I'm not making any profit here._

_A/N: I have seen the movie two weeks ago, needless to say because of Angelina Jolie. I never thought that I would write a fan fiction in English (it's not my mother tongue, so I'm sorry for eventual grammar mistakes), but that pretty bird got me inspired! Of course I would be happy to receive your thoughts on it and hope you'll enjoy reading!_

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><p><strong>Shifting the Darkness<strong>

The Moors, cradle of all things magical, home to radiating light, laughter, peace and playful fairies, hid also something else...

_The darkness_, looming in snippets of ungrateful thoughts, slumbering in the shadows of evergreen leaves and pastel petals, forgotten underneath smooth pebbles in the clear spring water. But it was ever present, never truly gone. Since the balance must be kept. Since light couldn't exist without it.

And the Moors couldn't exist without him.

Her pitiful mourning cries rose his ancient spirit from a thousands of years old sleep. Her bitterness formed him, her betrayed heart drew him near.  
>To find her amidst the ruins of his olden castle – residence to his reign of terror in a past as distant as the deepest abyss – was like a decent welcome back, a gift of a reason to resurface.<p>

She enticed him, his fallen fae. Crippled yet beautiful, broken yet powerful. Such potential, such reminiscence.

He needed to find a way to be by her side. So much, he even risked his carefully arranged new form, still fragile, though shape shifting was a given to him (and she wouldn't ever know).

He hadn't expected the stupendous shock, when transformed by her raw powers. A jar so fierce, that puckered scars stretched across his body, in response to his own conflicting magic. In agony he shifted to a man. Ah, what has she done to his beautiful self?

Yet it was well worth it, giving her the power over him. Watching her, observing her antics, feeding on her anger never got boring. The Moors turned dim, gave way to its self-proclaimed guardian and queen, surrounded by a wall of thorns. How he loved the spectacle.

Then, on a day which doomed him forever, swiftly and without warning, something profound shifted within him – the moment she heard of the birth of the child, tears of loss running down her chiseled cheek. In torrents he could feel the darkness dissipate from him, disintegrating his very essence, leaving him blank, void of anything. The terror he felt was ineffable.

His whole being morphed according her whims (and she would never know this either). He was no more the retainer of darkness. Now misery was his new shape, and something akin to longing filled his confused mind, weighting down the space being called his heart.

In consequence he hadn't enjoyed her little magic show, cruelly casting a mighty curse upon an innocent child, just to spite her beloved human. That moment he knew, he couldn't be longer called a devil of the Moors. And he wasn't sure of what he has become at all. Maybe naught than a lost spirit without purpose, a ghost bland and blank. Even so, ridiculously desiring the heart of the wounded fae, the one who was detached and blind to him.

Keeping the masquerade, he needed desperately to find a replacement for his disappeared cause and to fill the emptiness still ruling inside him. Watching the sweet child grow up made him kind, but it wasn't fulfilling either.  
>He was trapped beside the fae, chained to her by inexplicable forces. He was her crow (her wings), her manservant to behold and as the years went by little did change between them.<p>

Instead, the cold fae grew attached to the child she loathed, denying it first, then at the very last succumbing to her motherly instincts. She even tried to take back the curse, the good godmother. Yet the True Love's Kiss was the only salvation, an ironical punishment befalling her, but also him, in rising up his absurd hopes.

Alas, the beautiful faes heart was full. The salvation only lasted for one. And he stood apart from her, always observing, never receiving.

"You are no longer my servant. You are free to go." the fae said, horned like the finest devils and winged as the most glorious harpies, all proof to her noble ancestry.

Thus, with his vow nullified, he tried to believe that it was for the best. But he was exhausted and refused to suffer eternally. So he needed to acquire back the darkness, then fall into his cold immortals' sleep again, forgetting the fae and the child, even the Moors itself.

So he searched for it, in snippets of ungrateful thoughts, in the shadows of the Moors' green splendor, under the pebbles in the gelid water. Since he knew very well that the darkness never disappeared completely. After all that was the law of nature, after all he had been a part of it once.

Though, however hard he tried, he wouldn't find the delicate link. The darkness had shifted beyond his reach, leaving behind mere shallow powers to be called his own. Still he may have been mightier than the fae, still it was meaningless to him.

A joyous proclamation then reached his ears, even in the most remote of places. The queen of the Joined Kingdom, his little girl he used to guard, was expecting a child. So he came to see her, as to bestow a boon upon her. And she was happy and glowing, the fair queen, enchanting everyone around her more than ever.

But there was something elementary wrong as he could sense outright that the unborn child's little heart was growing deformed. And his fae would smile tenderly at her goddaughter, but upon turning around shedding secret tears of grief.

She was sad, so sad, his fae and it tore him apart, he couldn't bear it at all. So he offered his useless heart to the unborn heir. Inner peace spread through his being, and with a content smile he used up his entire magic when dissipating into nothingness, never to appear again. 

The End


End file.
